Performance, Recording

Should I hire a musician to play my instrument?

Whether or not you play cards, perhaps the best advice you can hear as an artist is “play to your strong suit”.

For some artists, their strength is their musical ability, not their songwriting.  For others, it will be the opposite – some artists have greatly developed their songwriting voice, and/or their singing voice, but have only developed their instrumental ability sufficiently to serve their songwriting, or to accompany themselves at an open mic.

This is NOT a weakness!  Many savvy artists choose to specialize, dedicating themselves to excellence in a particular area – often with the benefit of developing a unique style or sound.  That becomes a tremendous strength.

So maybe you wrote your song with a guitar in your hand, and can accompany yourself at an open mic on that guitar.  That doesn’t mean you’re the best choice to play guitar on your recording, or the best choice to accompany yourself at an important live performance.  This concept even extends beyond musical accompaniment.  For some purposes, you may even want someone other than you to be the singer, the FOCUS of the performance, if it better serves the purpose of communicating your song with your desired audience.  This could be in an effort to pitch your song demo to a recording artist, to perform at a showcase event, or even your creative choice of how to prepare your song for public release (MANY songwriters have released records on which another artist is the lead singer).

Consider all your options.  If you can hire a specialist to play an instrument on the record, or on-stage, better than you can do it yourself, it is worth considering, for the sake of the quality of the record.  Do all you can do to make your art remarkable, and always play to your strong suit!


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